Local Capacity Strengthening

Strengthening the Capacity of Local Partners

Pathfinder has established deep bonds of trust with local partners. Together with governments and civil society organizations, we have drastically improved the accessibility and scale of sexual and reproductive health services and resilience of health and community systems in dozens of countries, changing lives for the better. We listen closely to our community partners and strengthen local capacity as part and parcel of how we advance sexual and reproductive health and rights and with sustainability and locally led development in mind.

Students are attentively learning about SRHR during a school health session. Photo: Ridwanul Mosrur

Community-Based Organizations 

We partner with local community-based and civil society organizations to serve the needs of their communities. These organizations are trusted in their local communities and understand the context for running a program, but they often lack resources to do their work in an ideal way or operate at scale.

We ensure meaningful and respectful partnerships built on trust, engaging community voices and facilitating locally led solutions from design through project implementation. We offer diverse approaches to capacity strengthening based on the priorities and identified needs of the organizations, including:

trainings, coaching and mentorship,
sharing resources and best practices,
supporting development of organizational policies, process, and strategic plans,
facilitating knowledge and skills exchange.

We ensure our partners understand and follow global best practices when it comes to working on sexual and reproductive health and rights and managing programs. We help strengthen the institutional capacity of the organizations across technical, operational, management and governance so that they thrive and become more sustainable.

Government Partners

Providing technical assistance to government partners at all levels is integral to ensuring strong sexual and reproductive health and rights programs. We strengthen government capacity to sustainably steer, deliver, coordinate, fund, and enact right-based policies that advance sexual and reproductive health and rights. We strive to co-create and co-manage programs with government partners; for example, we support joint assessments to identify strengths and gaps and develop and implement capacity- strengthening plans to advance key government and program priorities.

Health Worker Performance

Ensuring the health system is well prepared to serve women, girls, and communities, even in the most challenging environments, is the foundation is what we do.

This often entails training, coaching and mentoring health workers to provide quality, client-centered health care—ensuring they are applying best and high-impact practices; honoring clients’ rights to voluntary, informed contraceptive choice; and meeting the sexual and reproductive health needs of clients.

We work with health managers and supervisors to mentor and build the skills of different cadres of the health workforce, creating sustainable pathways to oversight and quality assurance within the local health system and responsive to local needs.

We help health systems to adopt digital innovations that simplify data collection and analysis, and boost health worker performance.

Task-Sharing

With a shortage of qualified health workers operating in many of the places where we work, we work with governments to roll out task-sharing strategies, train community health workers to take on tasks usually designated to health providers working at static health facilities. A major part of this work has been training community health workers in multiple countries to offer more effective methods of contraception, like Sayana Press—a self-injectable—during home visits.

Youth Leaders

As an organization focused on a healthier future for all, we work with millions of young people every year. We not only help to ensure they get the services they need, but we strengthen their capacity to advocate for their own needs with local governments, provide sexual and reproductive health information and services to their fellow young people as peer educators and mentors, and ensure they are engaged and have a say in programs and services meant to benefit them.

We meaningfully engage youth to ensure that programs meant to serve them are locally led and responsive to their needs.
We prioritize youth-led organizations for capacity strengthening so that they can deliver quality, sustainable programs.
We enhance the leadership skills of young people to serve as youth champions in their communities.

Countries using this approach

Bangladesh

Burkina Faso

Burundi

Côte d’Ivoire

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Egypt

Ethiopia

India

Kenya

Mali

Mozambique

Nigeria

Pakistan

Sierra Leone

South Sudan

Uganda

Featured Projects

OSRA (Family)

For nearly 40 years, Pathfinder has partnered with the Government of Egypt to advance reproductive health in the country. Pathfinder’s…

Tubiteho (Let’s Take Care of Them)

Tubiteho unifies health resources and works with local partners to accelerate the delivery and uptake of family planning, maternal, newborn,…

USAID/Uganda Family Planning Activity

Pathfinder is implementing the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Uganda Family Planning Activity that will address underlying social, cultural,…

USAID/Mozambique Improved Family Planning Initiative

Between 2016 and 2021, through the Integrated Family Planning Program (IFPP), Pathfinder reached women with a particularly high unmet need…

Amplify Family Planning and Sexual Reproductive Health

AmplifyPF mobilizes and engages communities, national resources, donors, and West African communities to strengthen the sustainability and scale-up of postpartum…

Shukhi Jibon

In partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, this project provided adaptive, needs-driven technical assistance and systems strengthening…

Transform: Primary Health Care

Benefiting nearly 53 million people, the Transform: Primary Health Care project strengthens the management and performance of Ethiopia’s national health…